The Metropolitan Golf Club

Metropolitan traces itself to 1891 and moved in 1908 to South Oakleigh, where a club member, J.B. MacKenzie, no relation to the doctor, laid out the course. That makes it the first of the Sandbelt clubs on the ground the region is now famous for.

The course has been altered many times since, most substantially when land was taken for the Monash Freeway and holes had to be rebuilt. What has not changed is the reputation for presentation: Metropolitan’s fairways and green surrounds are the benchmark other Australian clubs are measured against.

What it asks of you

A par 72 on classic Sandbelt ground, sand beneath and couch above, with the whole course playing firm and fast for most of the year.

It is the flattest of the Sandbelt’s best courses, which makes it the easiest of them to walk and puts all of the difficulty into the greens and the bunkering. The putting surfaces run very quick and are widely held to be the finest set in the region, which in this company is a substantial claim. The bunkers have a slightly different sand consistency from those at the neighbouring clubs, and visitors notice it.

The course offers a genuine variety of shots across the eighteen and is described as difficult but friendly, which is the balance that keeps it in every Australian top ten without ever being the most talked-about course on the Sandbelt.

What players say about it

Access is through a member or a recognised club introduction, so the review record comes from visitors who cleared that process and from architecture writing. The notes below summarise recurring themes across those public sources. They are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course, and we do not name or quote individual reviewers.

What comes up in its favour

• The greens are the headline in nearly every account, and the phrase that recurs is the best greens on the Sandbelt, sometimes the best in Australia.
• Conditioning overall is described as elite, and the fairways draw praise as often as the putting surfaces.
• The clubhouse, the pro shop and the staff are consistently praised, and reviewers describe the experience as a polished country club rather than a bare golf club.
• The flat ground makes it a comfortable walk, which visitors playing several Sandbelt courses in a week appreciate more than they expect to.

What comes up against

• The flatness that makes it walkable also makes it the least visually interesting of the great Sandbelt courses.
• A group of trees near the seventeenth green is singled out by architecture writers as out of character with the rest of the routing.
• The bunker sand plays differently from the neighbouring courses, and players moving between them have to adjust.
• Access is restricted, and a golfer without a club connection is unlikely to get on.

Getting there and when to go

South Oakleigh is around thirty minutes south-east of central Melbourne. Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Commonwealth and Huntingdale are all within a few minutes, and Metropolitan is usually played as part of a Sandbelt week rather than on its own.

The course plays all year on sand that drains. Spring and autumn give the most reliable weather; summer gives the firmest and fastest conditions. Visitor access is arranged through a member or a recognised club introduction.

Green fees

Rates and visitor conditions are set by the club and depend on the introduction. See the club’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location, Wikipedia and published architecture coverage for the history and the alterations, and the club’s own site for access. The opinion section summarises public reviews, guest accounts and architecture writing read in September 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we do not reproduce or attribute quotes.

We have not played this course, and nothing here is a substitute for that. The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say in what it says. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.